


let’s give them something to talk about

by pasdexcuses



Category: Veep (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-12
Updated: 2015-12-12
Packaged: 2018-05-06 06:49:20
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,850
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5407082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasdexcuses/pseuds/pasdexcuses
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Dan has an indecent proposal for Amy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	let’s give them something to talk about

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ladywaffles (JaneEyre)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JaneEyre/gifts).



> **A/N:** Dear Ladywaffles, I hope you like this because I had _so much fun_ writing it! We actually matched on a different fandom but when I read your prompt for _Veep_ , I just couldn't resist :) 
> 
> **Disclaimer:** The characters featured in this story are fictional and do not belong to me. No profit is being made, and no copyright infringement is intended.

Amy narrows her eyes at Dan. 

“No,” she whispers because their librarian, Mrs Lindholm, is widely known for kicking out loud students. 

“Now, listen,” Dan starts, “I’ve crunched the numbers—”

“You’ve crunched the numbers?” Amy parrots. “What numbers, you idiot?”

“I’ve polled the people.”

“And by people, you mean our fellow high schoolers, half of which are empty-headed morons who were in all likelihood high as freaking kites at the time of said polling. Which would invalidate whatever pathetic excuse for a ‘poll’ that you have deluded yourself into having conducted.” 

“Nice,” Dan says. “Though you may want to refrain from calling your future constituents empty-headed drug addicts.”

Amy rolls her eyes at him. “Go away, Dan, I have a campaign to plan.”

She gestures to the powerpoint slides on her laptop. She’s evidently busy. 

“Look, there’s no way my current guy is going to win this. So if I’ve to have a shot, I need a new partner.”

“What makes you think I’d agree to run for student council with a back-stabbing douchebag?” Amy counters, crossing her arms above her chest. “Plus, if you’re coming to me, that means I have the better odds, ergo I do not need you.”

“Wrong,” Dan says, “you’re the second best. Mother Teresa and Boy George are taking the gold, and trust me, you’re more than a little behind.” He pauses for dramatic effect, then, “It’s the couple-factor.” 

He makes a face that clearly illustrates how little he thinks of the subject.

Amy, despite her absolute hatred for Dan, can relate to that. Because Terese Myers and her boyfriend, George Hall, are the most boring people to have ever walked the planet. It’s beyond Amy why anyone would pick those two for president and vice-president of the student council. They have no teeth. No killer instinct. Really, they just make for easily-manipulated politicians. The worst kind. 

She considers what Dan just said before replying, “If the couple-factor is what’s going to decide these elections, I don’t see how pairing up with you is gonna do me any good. It is a truth universally acknowledged that we hate each other.”

“Ah, but you haven’t let me get to the best part,” Dan counters. “I run as your VP, but _we_ run as a couple, too.”

He smiles in this disgustingly charming way that has made many a knee buckle. It makes Amy wanna gag. 

“Are you—” she starts, way too loud because Mrs Lindholm clears her throat and glares at the pair of them. After smiling apologetically at her librarian, Amy turns to Dan and whisper-yells, “Are you out of your mind! What am I even asking, of course you are! I’m never dating you.”

“Amy,” Dan says, “sweet, innocent Amy, nobody said anything about actual dating. We’re just going to pretend to be doing so.”

“We hate each other. It feels like I’m saying this a lot, but it bears repeating. We hate each other. Nobody’s going to believe we’re dating!”

“No, they’re gonna love this shit,” Dan insists. “‘From hate to love’. They’re gonna eat that shit right off our hands.”

“No.”

“Just think about it,” Dan says. 

“Why is this so important to you anyway?” Amy asks. 

“Well, the reasons why we do these things are not really what’s important here.”

“So, you’re doing this for the extra credit you need to keep your jock ass in the football team,” she concludes and knows she’s right the moment Dan rolls his eyes at her. 

“Oh, because your reasons are so noble and selfless, too, Miss I’d-do-anything-to-get-into-Harvard.” 

“You’re not going to leave me alone, are you?” Amy asks. When Dan shakes his head, she adds, “I’ll consider this.”

 

Amy is getting some books from her locker on Monday when Dan appears by her side. He puts an arm around her shoulder and leans down to whisper, “Hey, Amy.”

It sends a chill down her spine, and she wants to punch him in the face but knows physical violence won’t do her any favours on the road to president of the student council. 

Instead, she glares at him, a perfect little glower she has mastered over the years. Dan smiles wider. 

Closing her locker as hard as she can, Amy asks, “What do you want?”

“Have you decided?”

“No.”

“No, you’re not doing it, or no, you haven’t decided?”

“No, I haven’t decided,” Amy replies. “But I gotta say, you’re starting to tip the scales toward a very fierce ‘no’.”

Dan groans. “You had all weekend to think about it, come on.”

Amy rolls her eyes at him and walks away, wishing very much that Dan is wrong about the whole thing. 

But he isn’t. Of course he isn’t, and as the week progresses, it becomes harder to deny it. Because Dan keeps doing these little things. Like, on Tuesday, he stands next to Amy on the queue for lunch and sits next to her for a full five minutes until she kicks him under the table, and he goes away. He keeps appearing next to her locker, even helps her pick up the books she accidentally-on-purpose drops on his foot. 

But Dan is right because all these little things start getting noticed. On Thursday, a girl Amy has never spoken to, says hi and wishes her good luck with her campaign. People she hasn’t directly spoken with in years are waving at her. She hates it when Dan does those little things that make the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. But she hates it even more when she realises that they work. 

On Friday, when Dan asks her again, Amy’s answer is, “What would we have to do?”

She’s expecting Dan to fist-bump the air or something equally immature, but instead he just looks incredibly relieved. 

“Well, I’ve been laying the ground work for us all week,” he says. “But I think we should step it up. Go to the Olive Garden.”

Amy raises a quizzical brow at him. “You take me to the nicest places, Dan. What’s next, McDonald’s Drive-Through?”

“It’s where our voters spend their Fridays, darling.” 

She crosses her arms. An evening with Dan Egan at the Olive Garden. She’s pretty sure she’s had nightmares about this in the past.

“Fine,” Amy finally says. “Pick me up at seven.”

“Yes, _sweetheart_.”

 

Amy has been waiting by the door for a good twenty minutes. She’s starting to think this whole thing was a set up to stand her up and is considering the many ways in which she can destroy Dan’s life when the doorbell rings. 

It’s Dan in a pair of pressed jeans and a shirt with a collar. Like he’s going to a proper restaurant and not the travesty of a place that they’re actually going to. 

“You’re late,” Amy informs him. 

“What, no greeting kiss for me?” Dan smirks. 

“I’ll punch you in the face before that happens.”

This, for some reason, makes Dan snort. He leads the way to his car, even opens the door for Amy, like he’s trying to show her how much of a gentleman he can be when they both already know it’s a lost cause. Amy has known Dan since they were six years old. She’s seen him eating and burping and sticking things up his nose. 

Amy used to think it was funny. Back when she and Dan were friends. But that ended in Middle School, when Dan decided he’d rather be a brainless jock, and Amy resolved her academic future was worth the sacrifice of friendship. 

She’s thinking about this when Dan turns the car off and announces they’ve arrived. She looks at him, lost for a moment. 

“You okay?” he asks. 

Then she snaps back to, can feel herself going red with embarrassment. 

“Fine,” she replies, unbuckling her seatbelt and bolting out of the car.

A cool breeze hits her in the face, messing up her carefully combed hair. She takes a deep breath before she fixes an invisible wrinkle on her dress. 

“I hate you,” Amy tells Dan, just for good measure. 

Dan smiles brightly at her. “Trust me, the feeling’s mutual.”

They find a corner booth that barely fits two people, and their knees keep bumping as they talk about really profound and interesting stuff like the weather. It’s a good thing their servings are generous because it gives Amy the excuse of stuffing her face so she won’t have to make more excruciating small talk. 

It’s like that, with their limbs accidentally touching because there’s no space, that the evening passes by. Amy thinks she’s made it, is ready to celebrate her small victory when Dan turns his face to her and leans. 

“What—” Amy starts but Dan shuts her up.

“Just go with it,” he says, tilting his head.

Their faces are a breath away, and Amy’s brain is going into full-panic mode because what the hell does Dan think he’s doing? They’re not kissing, just breathing garlic in each other’s faces, which Amy finds disgusting and wonders whether Dan thinks it, too. She is honestly so confused. Until she hears a gasp, and out of the corner of her eye, she sees someone snapping a shot of the two of them.

That’s when Dan moves away. 

“Oh, thank God,” he says, breathing out. “I thought I’d have to wait forever.”

“Wait forever?”

“Until someone took a picture, of course,” Dan explains. Then, smirking, “You didn’t think I was going to kiss you for the fun of it, did you?” 

Amy musters up her best glare before replying, “First of all, you didn’t kiss me, you breathed in my face. Second, of course not. I would’ve hit you.”

Dan gives her a disbelieving look before getting the bill, which she has no problem letting him pay, this whole mess being his idea and all. 

 

It takes her a long time to fall asleep that night, too busy weighing the pros and cons of Dan’s machiavellian plan. On the one hand, she could win these elections, and ‘President of the Student Council’ would look rather good for Harvard. On the other hand, she’d have to spend an inordinate amount of time with Dan Egan. She doesn’t come to a definitive conclusion that night or during the weekend. She buys herself a little red journal on Saturday to start making her pros/cons list, reckoning she can give herself a full week to really consider her options.

Except that, come Monday morning, the whole thing has spiralled out of control. 

 

“So,” Jonah, the most annoying chief editor their school newspaper has ever seen, says, “what’s this I hear about you and Dan Egan dating? Can you confirm this?”

Amy tries very hard not to do anything that might appear incriminating. “No comment,” she says.

“But you were seen together at the Olive Garden.” He searches in his pants for something and produces a phone. “I even have a picture.”

Well, Amy thinks exasperated, if he already has a picture what the hell does he need confirmation for? Didn’t he get the memo? A picture is worth a thousand words. 

“We went out once,” Amy says, as coldly as she can. “I hardly think that qualifies as dating.”

“Oh, come on, Amy. Give me the scoop, how did hatred blossom into love?”

“Will you look at that,” she says, looking down at her watch in an attempt to save herself from her own temper. “I’m late. Gotta go!”

She hears Jonah mumbling something about the bell not having rung yet but she keeps up her brisk pace. 

The story of them dating is all over the school by lunch. A girl in Amy’s chem class asks her how it happened, and someone in AP English passes her a rather bitter anonymous note. 

Amy has never been afraid of the spotlight. You don’t get to be almost every teacher’s favourite by being shy. But that isn’t to say she enjoys being gossiped about. There’s a very clear difference. Also, if this is going to work, they better figure out every detail because Amy can only dodge questions for so many times before people start noticing it’s weird. It might take them months to figure out there’s something amiss, what with those pot-addled brains of theirs, but they’d sure get there eventually. 

Resolving there is no use in backing out now, Amy goes looking for Dan. It takes her a while, but in the end she finds him in the physics section of the library, which is not surprising when you think about about it. On the contrary, it’s rather predictable since the physics section is a dark, secluded corner, ideal for clandestine meetings. Like the one Dan is currently having with the head cheerleader. 

Clearing her throat as loudly as she can manage, Amy says, “Dan, a word?”

The head cheerleader, whose name Amy never bothered with, has the decency of looking shocked and embarrassed. Dan, on the other hand, looks as though he could murder someone. Amy thinks she should count herself lucky. After all, she did find them before Dan stuck his tongue down the cheerleader’s throat. 

“Really?” Amy asks as soon as what’s-her-name is out of earshot. She crosses her arms and glares. “We’ve been fake-dating for less than a week and you’re already cheating on me?”

Dan frowns. “How can it be cheating if we’re not really dating?”

“But it looks like we are, ergo your cheating looks real. And if you cheat on me, I look like the fool who decided to stick by the side of a sycophant. I am _not_ Julianna Margulies on a twisted High School version of the _Good Wife_.”

Dan frowns a little harder. “I’m sorry, who?”

Amy takes a deep breath and pictures herself getting her acceptance letter from Harvard. It’s a technique she read somewhere. Picture your goal in order to get through all the bullshit necessary to reach your final objective. Amy pictures that acceptance letter, imagines it in acute detail, from the coat of arms to the signatures on the bottom right. She brings out her red journal and pen. 

“Okay, Dan,” she says, a little calmer, “rule #1, you’re not going to flirt, much less hook up with, anyone while we’re fake dating or I’m publicly dumping your ass.”

“You wouldn’t,” Dan says, though his voice has lost some of its characteristic confidence. 

“Watch me.”

“Fine,” Dan agrees, though he looks mutinous. Then, he adds, “Rule #2, from now you have to be nicer to me.”

“Bite me.”

Dan’s hands flying into the air in what Amy assumes is exasperation. “God, why am I even doing this?”

“Because you’re an idiot who needs the extra credit,” Amy replies, though she’s pretty sure Dan’s question was purely rhetorical. Anyway. “We need to figure out our story,” she says. “Jonah accosted me in the hall, wanting ‘the scoop’. Except I can’t give him ‘the scoop’ because I don’t even know what it is.”

Dan considers this for a moment. “But that’s good. Just find Jonah and spin him the tale of how you finally fell for my charms.”

“If I find Jonah, I’m gonna tell him how you begged and begged until I finally went out with you on a pity date.”

Dan opens and closes his mouth a couple of times before finally settling on, “Fine, let’s figure out our story.”

“And,” Amy adds, “you’re the one who’s talking to Jonah. I have shit to do.”

“What, you gotta read Jane Austen again?”

“Fuck you.”

“Oh, be nice and we might,” Dan says around a smirk. 

Jesus Christ.

“I’ll punch you,” Amy threatens. “I swear to God that I’ll punch you if you so much as touch me.”

“You know, I might’ve believed that if you’d sworn to Harvard or Yale,” Dan replies. “But God? Don’t make me laugh.”

Ignoring him, Amy says, “I have time this afternoon to discuss the details of our arrangement, your place or mine?”

“Mine,” Dan replies. “Can’t trust you won’t offer me poisoned water.”

“You’re no use to me dead,” she tells him. “But whatever, see you at five.”

 

Dan’s house is the house that puts all the other houses on its street to shame. Its gardens are in perfect shape, the green bright, the flowers blooming. And everything from the paint to the doorknob looks brand new. Amy sighs before ringing the bell, sure it’s going to be a very long evening. 

She’s not mistaken.

 

It doesn’t take them long to come up with a backstory that they both find tolerable. It’s cheesy as hell, involves a couple of semi-romantic notes passed in class and a single rose. It reeks of total bullshit, if you ask Amy, but Dan is convinced everyone’s gonna love it. 

The backstory isn’t the problem. Their campaign is. Because Amy has very strong opinions on how she wants to run the student council, from changes to yearly activities planned by the council to the spreadsheet she’s already set up for whomever gets elected treasurer. And it’s not that Dan disagrees. It’s more that he tries to put Amy’s carefully-worded proposals into “student-friendly” phrases.

“You’re dumbing down my entire campaign,” Amy informs him for what feels like the hundredth time. 

She’s been trying, and failing rather miserably, to keep Dan from cutting out all the words he deems ‘too smart’. Which are a good 90% of Amy’s current sentences. 

“Your proposals include the words ‘postulate’ and ‘elucidating’,” Dan says. “Your campaign _needs_ dumbing down. Have you seen the competition?”

Amy has, indeed, seen the competition, and she flat out refuses to to go with what’s in vogue, because, “You are not writing my proposals in any sort of glittery monstrosity!”

She has already seen Terese and George’s posters all over the school, and Amy can’t understand how anyone would bother trying to decipher what’s written on them. 

“Of course not,” Dan replies. “We’d look like we can’t come up with our own ideas.”

“No pink, either,” Amy says, cringing when she reads yet another one of Dan’s rephrasing of her educated sentences. 

“We’ll go classy,” Dan tells her. “Red, blue and white. Trust me.”

Amy doubts she’ll ever trust Dan on anything, but she already knows trying to convince him otherwise is only going to make this evening longer. Instead, she takes very detailed notes on her red journal, keeping a written record of everything they agree on in case they run into any problems in the future. She likes to be thorough. 

It takes them three whole evenings to get their campaign ready. Two weeks after Dan first came to Amy with his indecent proposal, they officially register as candidates. 

The news of them running together — of Dan Egan running as Amy Brookheimer’s vice-president — spreads through the school like an STD. 

 

They have a full month to convince students to vote for them. And while Amy’s strengths rely on her near-frightening debate abilities, Dan is in charge of their overall image. He’s in charge of making Amy look ‘approachable’. His words, not hers. 

It’s why they hold hands in public, why Amy allows Dan to carry her books and call her babe, even though she feels like gagging every time this happens. She puts a stop to Dan’s ways when she finds him trying to bribe some of the freshmen with candy bars. She yells at him for three full minutes about bribes as a disqualifying offence, threatening to ruin his reputation as a man if he ever does anything like it again. Dan either gets her fair point or is too afraid of her threats because Amy never sees him trying to buy votes with processed sugar again. 

Working with Dan is as excruciating as she’d imagine. She feels like she has to be on top of every little thing Dan does in order to make sure he won’t make any other faux pas. But, apart from the constant vigilance, they make a surprisingly solid team. She hates to admit it, but Dan was right. Together, they have a much better chance of winning this. 

She can see it now that they’re in the middle of campaigning. Not that she’s ever gonna say that to Dan. It’s a secret she’ll take to her grave. 

 

She keeps waiting for Dan to really screw up, though. She keeps worrying and worrying. But, in the end, it’s Amy who almost ruins their lives. 

 

Nine days into their run finds them in the library during their lunch break, prepping for the first debate.

“Look, we can revise our campaign plan if you want,” Amy offers after Dan insists that they have not been specific enough about Halloween. 

She thinks the whole issue is ridiculous, but he keeps yapping about Halloween being one of their biggest activities since the students get so into it. So she obliges him by rummaging inside her bag for her red journal. 

She doesn’t immediately panic when she fails to produce the journal because her bag is a cluttered mess. In fact, panic only really settles after she turns all the contents of her bag on the desk, and the journal is still nowhere to be found. 

“What is it?” Dan asks after she’s spent a frantic couple of minutes going through her stuff.

“It isn’t here,” Amy replies. 

Shit. 

“You’re gonna have to elaborate on that, sweetie,” Dan teases, and this is so not the time. 

“The journal,” Amy snaps, “the fucking journal isn’t here!”

“Still a bit lost here.”

“The journal, the one where I’ve been writing down our campaign strategies and, and…”

“Okay,” Dan says, his tone more understanding now. “Okay, that’s not too bad. You probably left it at home or in your locker.”

“I didn’t,” Amy says. “I wrote on it this morning, and I haven’t taken anything from my locker, and oh, God, we’re done for if anyone finds that. It’ll be the end. Forget the campaign, we’ll get suspended or something.”

“What are you even talking about? It’s not like we’re running a dirty campaign.”

“Yeah, except for the part where we’re pretending to date!”

“Yes, but you didn’t write—” Dan’s eyes widen. Amy would find his expression comical, were it not for the fact that, in this case, it’s completely appropriate. “You didn’t,” Dan says. “How the fuck could you be so fucking stupid!”

“I didn’t intend to carry it around!” Amy explains. “It just sort of happened.”

“Well, thanks to you we’re screwed.”

“Thank you, that’s a lot of help.”

Dan runs his fingers through his hair, taking a deep breath. “Okay,” he says, “okay, we can fix this. We just have to find it and then _burn the damn thing_. Where did you last see it?”

It takes them the rest of their lunch break to retrace Amy’s morning, and they still can’t find her red journal. They reluctantly go to their afternoon classes. Amy is so jittery that Mrs Gomez asks her if she needs to go see the nurse. The whole afternoon is pure torture and when the final bell rings, Amy rushes to the parking lot.

Dan is already waiting for her there. 

“I think I know where I might have left it,” Amy tells him. “I went to the third-floor lab to see Mr Ellis about my chem project. And when I couldn’t find my notes, I started taking things out of my bag.”

Dan looks relieved. “It must be in the lab.”

“Guess we’ll have to wait till tomorrow,” Amy says. “The school is about to close down.”

“Then we better hurry,” Dan tells her, already on his way back inside. 

 

The halls are almost empty on the first floor, and there is not a single student in sight when they reach the third floor. Amy keeps worrying about someone finding them there and asking questions. But her pulse doesn’t really hit sky-high levels until they stand in front of the lab and the door is locked. 

Because Dan’s solution is not to go back and try again tomorrow. No, his solution is to ask Amy for a couple of her hairpins. Amy gives them to him, not really understanding until Dan bends in front of the lock and starts picking it. 

“Are you fucking insane!” Amy all but yells at him.

“Shut up,” Dan snaps. “I’m trying to fix your mistake, so just shut up.”

“I’m not gonna ‘just shut up’ while you break into school property. We will get expelled if anyone finds us. I’m not gonna let you—”

“Aha!”

Dan pushes the door open, gesturing for Amy to go in. She hesitates. This is so wrong. On so many levels. But. 

“Come on,” Dan says, going inside.

Amy swallows and follows him, closing and locking the door behind her. 

“Okay,” she says, moving to Mr Ellis’ desk. “It should be here somewhere.”

They look around, making careful mental notes of where everything is so they can put it back in its place before they go. It takes them almost ten minutes, and Dan breaking into all the locked drawers but they finally find it. Amy doesn’t know whether to be impressed or terrified by Dan’s burglar skills. 

“Right,” he says, putting back the stapler that was on top of the red journal in the drawer. “Let’s get out of here and burn this thing.”

Amy nods her agreement. She fixes a couple of things on the desk, taking one final look to make sure it all looks in order. They’re ready to leave when a noise makes them stop dead. They stare in perfect silence at each other, waiting to see if whoever is outside goes away. No such luck. 

Instead, a set of keys rattles on the other side of the door. Fuck. They are so fucked. 

Dan grabs her elbows and says, “Kiss me,” looking more than a little desperate. 

“Now is really not the time, asshole,” Amy shoots back, looking around for an exit or a place to hide. 

But short of jumping out the window — and the lab is on the third floor so that’d be a no — they’re trapped. 

“Don’t be dumb,” Dan says, grabbing her hips to pull her in. 

He smashes their mouths together, and Amy can smell aftershave on him, which is ridiculous because Dan is seventeen, and he probably needs to shave as much as bald man needs a haircut. She can feel Dan’s warm fingers spreading out on her hips, and she’s too shocked to move. Too shocked to take the necessary step back to slap Dan, who is holding her fast against him, his grip almost too tight on her hips. 

Then someone is clearing their throat behind them, making them jump apart. Amy takes a moment to throw a dirty look at Dan, one she hopes conveys how much she wants to kick the life out of him. When she turns to the person by the door, her face goes bright red.

Mr Ellis stares curiously between the pair of them. “So,” he says. 

Amy forgets all about wanting to slap the life out of Dan in favour of coming up with a halfway decent excuse but Dan beats her to it. 

“Couldn’t help ourselves, Mr Ellis,” he says, grinning cockily at their them teacher. 

“Uh huh,” Mr Ellis says, not looking entirely convinced. 

“It won’t happen again,” Amy promises. “We just, um, we—”

“We got caught up after class,” Dan elaborates for her, “I left my, uh…” 

He looks around himself for something to explain their presence in the lab. Amy, in an effort to help, reaches into her bag and grabs the first item in there. Dan stares at her when she hands him an eraser. A neon-pink eraser that Amy got from Planned Parenthood when she went there to fill her birth control prescription. 

To Dan’s credit, he clears his throat and ploughs on, “My eraser, Mr Ellis. I’m, uh, very attached to it.”

“To your bright pink eraser?” Mr Ellis asks, and his face is doing that thing faces do when they’re trying very hard not to laugh. He manages to control himself long enough to say, “Listen, you’re teenagers, I get it. But you should probably leave.”

“Sorry,” Amy says and is the first out the door. 

She almost sprints to the parking lot, not even bothering to check that Dan is following her, heart racing. 

“An eraser,” Dan says, a little breathless when he comes to stand next to her car. “A freaking _pink_ eraser.”

Amy glares at him. “I was trying to help.”

“You seriously need to look up the definition of help,” Dan retorts. “And burn that thing,” he says, pointing an accusatory finger at her bag. Shaking his head, he adds, “I never understood what it is with girls and diaries.”

“It’s not a diary,” she protests because it’s not like she’s written her deepest, darkest secrets on it. 

“Uh huh,” Dan says. 

“It’s not,” Amy insists. 

“Whatever, you’re lucky I’m on your side. You’re a terrible liar.”

“Oh, because you yourself are so great. Your solution was to—”

And that’s when Amy remembers in full what just happened. How Dan kissed her not ten minutes ago. How Amy let him. 

“My solution got us out of there, didn’t it?” Dan says, smirking. “Anyway, I gotta go. Try not to bring about our downfall before tomorrow morning, I need my beauty sleep.”

Amy huffs, refusing to dignify that comment with an answer. Getting inside her car, she shoves the key into the ignition and tries very hard to convince herself that this is all worth it by imagining that acceptance letter. 

 

She parks her car in her driveway and stalls. At some point, she starts forcing herself to inhale and exhale very slowly, like Roshan — the white dude who fancies himself a yogi after his three-day trip to India — instructs his students to do via youtube. 

After solid minute of this, she is not surprised to find Roshan’s teachings are somewhat lacking. Because even after opening her lungs to mother Earth or whatever the hell that means, Amy still has this feeling like she might explode and word-vomit to the first person who says hi to her. Because Dan Egan kissed her, and she can still smell him on her clothes because the boy wears way too much cologne, and the whole thing is very stupid, really. Dan is very stupid.

She’s convinced she will blurt out the whole thing to _anyone_ , so the smart thing to do is to wisely choose who that anyone will be. It’s times like these that Amy wishes she were friends with her neighbours just so she could go to their homes and show up at their bedroom window on a ladder, 90s-teen-sitcom style. She’ll have to settle for the next best thing, so she dials the familiar number. 

It’s three rings before someone picks up, “So, what did you do this time?”

Amy considers saying hello, you know, the thing normal people do when they start any conversation. Except Sue and her have never had that kind of relationship. No, theirs has always been a friendship of mutual respect where no bullshit is tolerated. 

“I did something stupid,” Amy says instead. 

“Is this about the Dan Egan thing?” Sue asks.

“How did you know about that? You’re like four time zones away and you don’t have Facebook.”

“Oh, little one,” Sue says in a deeply philosophical voice, “I am all-knowing. I am Sue.”

Amy snorts. 

“Come off it,” Sue says, “we’ve all done stupid shit.”

“Not this stupid, no.”

“Hmm,” Sue replies, “you could make a case for Kent Davison in Junior Year. Remember how I thought he’d given me an STD?”

“Yeah, no,” Amy says, “Kent Davison was ill-advised. This is plain stupid.”

“So, you like a douchebag, Amy.” Sue makes a brief pause, then, “There comes a time in every girl’s life when this happens. It’s a rite of passage. Like getting your period. You gotta make this mistake before you’re ready for the world. And hey, better sooner than later.”

“Thanks for the life-coaching speech, but that’s not the problem.”

“Well, out with it, girl, I’m a very busy woman, and I haven’t got all day!”

Frowning, Amy asks, “Did you just sing _The Little Mermaid_ at me?”

“College theatre, thought that’s really not why you called Miss Delaying Tactics.”

Amy has no trouble at all picturing Sue as evil Ursula, she can definitely see why her friend was chosen for the part. 

Amy takes one deep breath before blurting out, “We’re not really dating.” 

There’s a pause that’s almost a second too long before Sue replies, “What?”

“It’s a ruse to get more votes. Dan ran the numbers.”

“Dan ran—” Sue starts but then she stops herself. “Never mind that, what do you mean you’re fake-dating, what is your life? A Lifetime movie?”

Amy groans. “I know, I know. It’s awful.”

And that’s how she ends up telling Sue Wilson everything that’s happened between Dan and herself. Everything right up until, and including, the awkward kiss in the chem lab. 

“Wait, back it up, he _kissed_ you?” Sue asks.

“I know!” Amy all but yells. “He said it was just a diversion, but what the hell.”

“What the hell indeed, Amy. So, this happened today?”

“Like an hour ago.” Amy sighs. “Sorry, I just needed to vent. Nobody knows about the whole pretend couple thing.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Sue supplies. “Listen, I gotta run to rehearsal.”

Amy blinks, having momentarily forgotten that Sue’s college activities now include _plays_. “There’s a rehearsal an everything?” she teases. 

“Mhmm. You should bring your pretend boy to the opening,” Sue suggests. “I could use with some pretend friends so the nerds in the play will stop trying to get me to come out for drinks.”

“I suppose I could be your pretend friend, because you’re totally not a person I like,” Amy says, humming as though she’s considering her options. “Though you might turn out a worse pretend relationship than Egan.”

Sue fake-gasps on the other end of the line, and Amy has no trouble picturing her theatrically clutching at her chest. “I am shocked and offended Brookheimer,” Sue says. “Shocked and offended, I say.”

Snickering, Amy offers, “Will it make it better if I promise to come watch you try to hold back on the evil so you won’t scare the little kids?”

“Ah, you’ve said the magic words.”

“Bye, Sue.”

Sitting in the car a little longer, Amy is able to convince herself it’s not all bad. It’ll be fine. 

 

That night, she has a nightmare about someone having made copies of the pages of her journal. They’re pasted all over the school corridors, and people point and stare as she walks by. And then there’s Dan standing at the end of the hall, staring. And Amy can’t figure out what’s going on, or why she feels nauseated when looking at Dan.

She wakes up in the middle of the night, feeling like she’s gonna fall. Going through her things, she finds her journal, rips out all incriminating pages and tears them to pieces, one by one. 

She’s still pretty jumpy in the morning. 

 

Mostly, she’s pretty jumpy around Dan. Like, every single time he appears within twenty feet of her, Amy gets this feeling in the pit of her stomach, like a very strong cocktail of embarrassment and anxiety. Every time she sees Dan’s stupid face, she thinks that everyone knows what they’re up to. Her face blushes at the thought, and it simply will not do to blush because of anything related to Dan Egan. So Amy does the only logical thing to do and starts ignoring him. 

It goes fairly well for almost three days. But after lunch on the third day, when Amy is almost too relaxed and not paying too much attention to Dan’s whereabouts, she feels someone standing behind her. 

“I think we should practise,” Dan whispers in Amy’s ear.

Amy jumps and it’s a miracle she doesn’t scream, too. She closes her eyes and prays briefly for Dan to go away. The he doesn’t, she throws shut her locker door with as much force as she can muster. 

Turning to him, she raises a single eyebrow and asks, “Practise what?” 

“I was thinking about our performance in the lab,” Dan informs her, like he’s reporting the weather, “and I find that it lacked a certain _je ne sais quoi_.” 

“I’m surprised you even know how to use that phrase.”

Dan looks affronted for a second, and then he must get a terrible idea because he smirks before saying, “I’m a man full of interesting facts. Meet me at mine, and I’ll show you some of them.”

He wriggles his eyebrows, and Amy has to take a moment to be disgusted before replying, “No,” to any and all of Dan’s most recent suggestions. 

“Amy,” Dan says, “Amy, Amy, Amy. This is just going to be good press. We’re expected to at least give our good constituents _some_ degree of PDA. I really don’t understand why you refuse, it’s not like you have a reputation for being a prude. That’s more Mother Teresa’s speed.”

Amy huffs, exasperated. “Reputation is not an accurate reflection of what I do in my spare time. Also, no, never.” She thinks of the one kiss they already shared and her insides recoil. “Once was enough.”

“I find it hard to belief you find me _that_ disgusting,” Dan says, and he’s not going to shut up. Not ever, and Amy wants to chew his head off for being so obnoxious. “And honestly—”

On impulse, Amy grabs a hold of Dan’s t-shirt to pull him down for a kiss. He is so surprised, he doesn’t react at first. He sort of makes a noise of shock and then remains still against Amy’s lips. 

She’s about to give up, let go of him because her goal was to shut him up and she did. So there’s no point in prolonging the kiss, except eventually Dan grabs the back of her neck, and it’s Amy’s turn to make a noise of surprise. Which is not an invitation for Dan to shove his tongue down Amy’s throat, but that’s still what he does, and Amy, who has never backed out of an upfront challenge, pushes up on her toes, deepening the kiss. 

It shouldn’t work. Kisses between people who hate each other shouldn’t work. They shouldn’t be this messy and heart-racing. They shouldn’t make the involved parties grab forcefully at each other. They shouldn’t make anyone feel as though they’re being sucked into a vacuous space. 

It takes someone yelling at them to ‘get a room’ for Amy to break away. She knows she’s blushing. Knows there’s no hiding the fact that she’s stupidly breathless. 

Dan’s hair, when Amy looks up, is messy. His cheeks are slightly pink, his mouth shiny red. 

“That was—” he starts but Amy is on an interrupting mood that day.

“Practise,” she finishes for him before turning on her heels to walk away.

She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand, managing to keep herself together until she goes into the bathroom. Placing her hands on the sink to steady herself, she looks into the mirror, and the only thing on her mind is, _what the fuck_.

 

The more she tries not to think about it, the more she remembers the kiss. She blushes, and it’s really pathetic and beneath her but that doesn’t stop her from being so nervous she can’t even eat. 

It’s not that Amy’s never made out with anyone before, she’s not Drew Barrymore in _Never Been Kissed_. She’s even had sex — it was a less-than-exciting experience, but Amy chalks it up to her lack of real interest in her partner. It’s just that this is Dan, and she _hates_ Dan. It’s just that she has never felt herself being pulled into someone like that. 

It most be a hormonal thing, she decides. She’s a teenager, her hormones and everyone else’s are running high, every day, all year round. It’s probably just that. Yeah, definitely hormones. 

 

Their third kiss — Amy has trouble grappling with the fact that this is happening a third time, but moving on — happens for no reason other than Dan is an asshole. They get into a discussion on the merits of playing up school spirit. Amy thinks school spirit is bullshit while Dan has this irrational belief it’s necessary, compares the whole thing to nationalism. And that’s when Amy loses it, going into a rant on why Dan can’t even compare the two things because you cannot possibly—

Dan presses his mouth hard against Amy’s, and she is too shocked to react because they came to Dan’s house to prepare for the debate, not to kiss. This was not part of the program. If this had ever been part of the program, Amy would’ve never showed up. 

“God, you never shut up,” Dan says, his forehead pressed against Amy’s. 

Their faces are so close, she thinks she’s going cross-eyed just trying to hold his gaze. 

“Fuck you,” she says, grabbing the back of his neck to kiss him again. 

In retrospective, this move makes no sense. But Amy is so angry. She’s so angry that her fingertips are tingling with the need to punch someone. Except she doesn’t so much as punch Dan as she puts all her enraged energy into kissing him.

She pulls hard on Dan’s short hair, wishing there was more of it to tug at. She sucks on Dan’s bottom lip and digs her fingernails into Dan’s skin so hard that he cries out, “Jesus fuck, ow,” breaking the kiss. 

He studies Amy face, looking for something before he tilts his head, and they’re back at it again. 

There’s no one to yell at them to get a room this time around. Dan’s parents are away on a business trip, and the house is all alone. Amy hadn’t really thought about this before she came over. But the thought definitely pops into her mind when Dan grabs her hips, pulling her in. 

“Wanna go upstairs?” Dan asks, breathless against Amy’s lips. 

Amy takes a couple of seconds to blink at him. Then, “No.”

She grabs her things and rushes out of the house and into her car without another word. 

It keeps happening, and Amy can’t shake the suspicion that their reasons are becoming increasingly more ludicrous. Because the fourth time they kiss, it’s because a girl that doesn’t even go to their school winks obscenely at Dan while he and Amy are clearly on one of their pretend-dates. So the next logical step is to grab Dan’s face and give him a possessive kiss. 

“So neither of you gets any ideas,” Amy explains and refuses to meet Dan’s eyes for the next half hour. 

The fifth time they kiss, it’s because Dan thinks he sees one of his exes walking by, and apparently they have a complicated history. He is so much of a chicken that his solution to this is not face the problem but to pull Amy in for a kiss and pretend his ex doesn’t exist. 

The sixth time is not actually instigated by either of them. Of all things, it happens because someone bumps into Dan, pushing him into Amy's personal space. They stare at each other for a moment before he smiles lopsidedly at her. Amy is not sure who moves first, but the next thing she knows, they’re kissing. Again. 

By the seventh time, Amy is pretty much convinced the universe has it in for her and her sanity. Because her mind keeps occupying itself with thoughts of Dan, and she has better things to do. Anything would be better than wasting time obsessing about her breath and whether or not Dan noticed that the last time they kissed she had something stuck in her teeth. 

The whole issue is very problematic, is the thing. The last debate for student council is coming up, and Amy really, really has to focus on her speech. She has to stop thinking about Dan.

 

She’s watching reruns of _Grey’s Anatomy_ because that’s the only thing that can shut her brain down. Somewhere between the melodramatic plot and hot actors, her brain always manages to get lost for a decent 45 minutes. So she’s sitting there, not really thinking when something catches her attention: Unresolved Sexual Tension. And, more than UST itself, what really wakes her up from her trance is the solution to this particular conundrum: have sex with the object of your tension. 

It’s why she shows up at Dan’s, unannounced, two days later. 

 

“Well, Amy,” Dan says, looking for his boxers, “I gotta say I found that quite surprising.”

“Go to hell, Dan,” Amy replies, pulling her shirt over her head.

Amy, because she’s smart and capable of thinking ahead, did not scatter her clothes all over the room when this started. No, she placed her clothes on a chair near the bed, where she could easily access them after the deed was said and done. 

She looks over at Dan from her place on the bed. He has found his boxers and is now on the hunt for his pants, and it hits Amy that she’s never really seen Dan naked before today. She could definitely do worse, she thinks. If he weren’t such a terrible human, she might even feel attracted to the small of his back. 

“If I’d known you wanted me all this time,” Dan says, making Amy snap back to, “I’d done something about it sooner.”

“I do _not_ want you,” Amy protests. 

She’s perfectly aware that her argument has lost some of its ground in light of current events. But still. It’s the truth, so it’s worth vocalising. 

“Mhmm,” Dan says, crawling back on the bed.

He kisses Amy, slow and steady. It’s the first time they share a kiss like this, one that isn’t meant to serve any other purpose but itself. It’s weird, and Amy wonders if Dan feels it, too. 

She pushes Dan away before the situation gets worse, saying, “Gotta go back home.”

She’s out the door in under three minutes, which is a feat worthy of some sort of prize. 

 

The thing is, it happens again. 

Amy is not quite sure how they end up on Dan’s bed, her t-shirt and bra on the floor. Or rather, she knows how it happens, as in, she remembers the series of unfortunate events — Amy reasonably arguing a point and Dan kissing her — that led to the here and now. It’s more a question of not really understanding why she keeps letting these things happen. 

The really alarming thing is that she knows, somehow, that this will not be the last time. 

 

They’ve been steadily fucking for the past hour — half of which, Amy is very surprised to say, Dan spent going down on her — when Dan brushes a strand of hair off her face and says, “You know I like you, right?”

By now, Amy has frankly lost count of how many times they’ve kissed and barely knows the rough number of times they’ve had sex — around five or six. The steadiness of their physical relationship has not done much to keep at bay Amy’s dreams featuring Dan in various compromising positions. If anything, the sex has been the oxygen fuelling the horrifying wildfire of Amy’s nighttime fantasies. 

But none of that means she has suddenly started considering Dan as a human being worthy of her appreciation. Sure, over these weeks, she has found Dan has many talents, all of which he uses for evil, never for good. Amy can acknowledge the intricacies of a complex, super-villain mind. That still doesn’t mean she likes said mind.

Yes, she can admire Dan on some sort of twisted level. But _like_ him?

She blinks up at him, honest to God too confused to form words. She’s half-convinced she heard him wrong. 

At any rate, her safest bet is to bring Dan in for a kiss and hope they’ll never, ever have to talk about it. 

 

Amy hopes with all her heart that that thing Dan may have said was a fluke. But the thing is, after that afternoon, she starts paying closer attention to him. She’s not sure if what she’s noticing is a new development, or if it’s been like this for a while, but the fact remains that Dan is touching Amy in ways he wouldn’t have when this whole fake-dating first started out. It’s simple things, really. Nothing too theatric or exaggerated. Nothing that would get noticed by anyone. Seriously, it probably has gone unnoticed by Amy, and she’s the one being touched. 

See, it’s a hand on the small of her back, a knee pressed against hers. Fingers brushing when they’re doing their walk-and-talk thing down the corridors. It’s Dan telling her she has food on her chin and then using his thumb to brush it away. It’s Dan touching her elbow when he wants a word. And then there’s all the smiling, even when they’re alone. 

It all gives her the distinct feeling that things are about to start spinning out of her control. 

 

On the day of the student council elections, someone takes her picture right after she casts her ballot. A second later, Dan appears next to her, smiling bright for a different camera. He pecks her on the cheek and says, low so only Amy can hear him, “We’re gonna win this.”

She looks up at him and feels tingly all over. She stares at Dan, at his arms around her waist and wonders how long they’ll have to keep this up after the new council is elected. Wonders if there’s any point continuing the farce, regardless of the result. 

She gets a sinking feeling at bottom of her stomach when Dan leans down for a proper kiss. And she can’t. 

She excuses herself and all but runs to the nearest bathroom. 

 

Amy stares at her reflection in the mirror. She’s already splashed water over her face — a mistake in hindsight, because now her makeup is runny, and she looks like she’s been crying for the past hour. She looks a downright mess; feels a downright mess. And for the first time since this whole mess started, she knows, knows beyond a shadow of a doubt that agreeing to fake-date Dan was a mistake. 

The contemplation of the many errors of her ways are making her heartbeat pick up a frightening pace. She’s breathless and tired and confused and there’s this knot in her throat that won’t let her swallow, and _that’s_ when Dan barges in. 

He does a quick survey of the bathroom while Amy stands frozen in place. Once he knows the coast is clear, he asks, “Amy, what the hell?” 

Amy stares at him, hesitating for a moment before her fight or flight instinct kicks in. 

“Get out,” she says. 

She has no idea how her voice sounds so calm when she’s freaking the fuck out. 

“Amy,” Dan starts, taking a step closer to her.

He reaches out to touch her, but she takes a step back.

“Don’t,” she warns him. “Just, leave me alone.”

He stays quiet for a moment. Then, “You look like you’ve been crying.”

“Just leave me the fuck alone, Dan!” 

Dan stumbles backward, looking like he’s just had the breath punched out of him. He leaves without another word, and that’s when Amy starts to cry. 

 

She has no idea how long she stays in the bathroom stall but eventually she is able to put herself together. It’s a good thing she only has one class before the end of the day because her mind is simply not engaging. 

Amy locks herself in her room as soon as she gets home and refuses to come out for the rest of the day, turning off her phone and flopping on her bed. She stares up at the ceiling and tries very hard to follow Roshan’s teachings about inhaling and exhaling. They, of course, do not work.

She doesn’t normally have a lot of room to just be and ponder the meaning of life. Often, she’s too busy being a straight-A student for self-examination to be a part of her weekly routine. But today, it all feels sort of pointless. All she really wants to do is soak in a bathtub until she goes all prune-y. It’s probably the most self-indulgent wish Amy’s ever had. It’s probably the sort of wish people like Dan probably have on a daily basis. She hates Dan. 

Except, apparently, she doesn’t. Because when Dan leaned in earlier today, when he whispered in Amy’s ear, sounding stupidly happy, well, it gave Amy the sort of butterflies that she only ever imagined having after receiving her letter of acceptance into Harvard. She _wanted_ to kiss him. Earlier, she looked up at Dan’s open face and thought, _there you are_. 

Banging her head against the headboard, she hopes in vain that she’ll cause a head injury that’ll restore her sanity. No such luck. 

At some point, she considers calling Sue, but the idea of turning on her phone makes her stomach twist. She doesn’t want to know whether Dan has tried to contact her. Doesn’t want to know if there are any news form the electoral committee on the vote count. Doesn’t want to know a single thing about life outside the four walls of her bedroom. 

It’s a problem she’ll eventually have to face, but Amy is nothing if not determined. And really, her self-imposed imprisonment lasts longer than even she would’ve expected. Though, contrary to what she anticipated, it’s not her mother who comes knocking.

 

It’s somewhere around seven when there’s a knock on her door. 

“Who is it?” Amy asks, not bothering getting up.

There’s a pause on the other side of her locked door. Then Dan’s voice is coming, loud and clear, “It’s me. You aren’t answering your phone.”

She sits up on her bed as though someone has electrocuted her into reacting. 

She bites her lip before replying, “Anyone else would’ve taken a hint.” 

“Well, I’m a very special snowflake.” There’s another pause, and Amy has to remind herself that walking up to her door and pressing her ear to it so she can figure out Dan’s breathing pattern is probably a lame thing to do. “Come on, Amy, open the door.”

“No.”

“I’ve got news about the election?” Dan tries. 

“I’ll find out tomorrow, anyway.”

“Oh, so you aren’t planning on living out the rest of your life as a hermit in your parents’ house? That’s good to know.”

Amy chuckles despite herself and covers her mouth as soon as the first sound escapes her. It’s too late, though. 

“Are you laughing at me?” Dan asks from the other side. He sounds closer to the door now. “Amy, are you pranking me? You know, I never took you for a prankster, but if you are, I’ve gotta give it to you for commitment alone.” 

She has to bite the inside of her cheek to keep herself from smiling. “I’m not laughing.”

“Right, I forgot. Laughter is beneath you.”

“Ha ha.”

“Your impression of someone having a good time really needs some work, babe.”

She rolls her eyes. “Don’t call me that.”

“Okay,” Dan agrees easily. “But you gotta open the door, this is getting really weird.”

“You can always leave, Dan.”

“Babe,” Dan starts, “come on, I really wanna talk to you.”

“Ugh, why?”

He makes an exasperated noise. Then, “Oh, come on, Amy, are you really gonna make me confess my undying love through a door?”

Dan’s words are followed by an honestly awkward pause on his side. Jesus Christ. 

“Amy?” he ventures. 

But Amy is already standing up and unlocking her door. 

“Was that line?” she asks, not really sure she wants to know the answer.

“No,” he replies. 

And somehow, the world doesn’t end right there and then. It should. But it doesn’t. 

“Oh.”

“I need to know something,” Dan says, stepping into her personal space. “Can I come in?”

Nodding, Amy steps aside to let him inside. She closes the door behind herself, leaning back on it. 

“Why did you run away?” he asks.

“If I remember correctly, I didn’t run away. I walked—”

But Dan cuts her off. “I like you,” he says and smiles sort of lopsidedly and genuinely, which is both strange and… Well, endearing is the only word Amy has for it. 

“You’ve mentioned that.”

“Yeah, well,” he shrugs, “we make a surprisingly good team.”

“Is that why you like me? Because I’m useful?”

“What? No!” He walks over to where Amy is still with her back firmly against the door. She has nowhere to escape when Dan crowds her in. “I like you,” he starts, “because you’re funny and bright and really intense.”

“And here I was, thinking those were all too complicated for you to like.”

He tilts his head to the side, giving Amy a look that says _come on_. She can’t keep herself from smiling this time. And it’s ridiculous, the whole thing is absurd. For her to like Dan. For Dan to like her. It’s the sort of thing that shouldn’t happen. And yet. 

“Do you like me?” Dan’s pupils are blown and his eyes look almost black. 

She nods, once. 

It’s all the invitation Dan needs to lean in to kiss her. He smiles against Amy’s lips before breaking apart. 

“By the way,” he adds, “we totally crushed the competition.”

The words don’t really sink in at first. But when they do, when Amy’s brain catches on to their meaning, she grabs the collar of Dan’s shirt, pulling him down with all that she’s got. Their lips sort of crash at an awkward angle, but her smile is so wide that it almost doesn’t matter. She kisses Dan, kisses him until they’re both breathless and then some. 

“Fuck, yeah,” she says, feeling tingly and excited all over. 

They’re kissing again when she remembers, “I got us tickets to go see Sue Wilson play Ursula next weekend.”

It’s a moment before the words fully register in Dan’s brain. 

“What?” he asks eventually, taking a step back to have a good look at Amy’s face. “I can’t tell if you’re joking or not.”

“I’m not. And it’ll look really bad if I come back to school on Monday and tell everyone my _very real_ boyfriend stood me up.”

“That’s— I—” Dan looks so torn between confusion and indignation that Amy almost, almost takes pity on him. 

Instead, she kisses him on his chin and around the neck, sucking until he moans a little. 

“Come on, Dan,” she teases, “it’ll be good press.” 

“Yeah, okay, whatever, just,” Dan replies, grabbing Amy’s face, “just get over here.”


End file.
